by Clare London
“Quick!” Aidan grabbed Dominic’s arm. “Take this route.” He pulled Dominic in the opposite direction and dodged into a side road. He kept going, desperate to put distance between them and his Dreamweaver friends before they discovered him.
Several turnings later, Aidan thought it was safe to stop and gather his wits.
“Are you all right?” Dominic looked very confused, although unlike Aidan, he was not at all puffed. “You know this is in the opposite direction to the gallery?”
Aidan suddenly realized where they were: by complete coincidence, a few doors away from the Lukas Stefanowicz Agency—Zeb’s base. The last place Aidan wanted to be!
The call from behind him startled him further.
“Zeb? Yes, I was right, it is you! Zeb, sweetie, over here!”
Aidan remembered at the last minute to turn in response. He didn’t want to get used to answering as Zeb—but for the moment, he still was Zeb. At this rate he’d be in schizophrenia therapy for the next ten years.
At least it wasn’t a reporter this time.
A slight young man hurried down the steps from Lukas’s agency and across the road to meet them. He had long blond hair in complicated dreadlocks, the pale, fresh skin of a Scandinavian, and was wearing a vivid neon T-shirt and holey-kneed jeans, plus a broad smile of welcome on his face. “Zeb, thank God you’re here! I thought you were out on assignment. Lukas has you booked out for another few weeks.”
Aidan swallowed hard. Was that how long he had to keep this up? He thought of his last evening with Dominic—their talk, their laughter, their touches—and something twisted inside him. He wanted Dominic more and more, but the longer this went on, the more complex the pretense got. Lies had never been digestible to him.
“Just fifteen minutes, right?”
Aidan focused back on the earnest young man in front of him. “Fifteen—? What for?”
The man grinned at him. “Always the jokes! That’s why they like to work with you. You’re professional, but you’re such fun as well.”
“Yes. Sure.” Aidan had a low, sick feeling in his gut. “Tell me what’s going on.”
The guy looked briefly confused, then gabbled on. “CCC called. They won’t wait until next month. Not one day! Could you do a quick session now, sweetie? Just to keep them teased?” He looked Aidan quickly up and down. “You look fine. Just a little more makeup and perhaps a restyle of the hair. What have you been doing with it since I last saw you?” He hurried on without letting Aidan reply. His speech was peppered with virtual italics. “Anyway, I just finished the location shoot with Blake and Elaine, I’ve been out of the loop for so long, but here on my first day back they said, ‘Sven, we must have Zeb, see if you can find him, today, right now!’ I mean, I know what a stickler Lukas is for his schedule—”
“Yes, and so I don’t really have time—”
“—but they are one of the top underwear brands, aren’t they?”
“They… yes, of course they are,” Aidan said weakly. He cast a pleading look at Dominic.
Dominic had been watching the interchange with his usual bemused cynicism. Now he peered at Sven as if he were a new kind of talking bug. “What’s the problem?”
There was an awkward moment of silence while Sven and Dominic both gazed at Aidan expectantly. Aidan cleared his throat. “Er… Sven. Remind us both about it, will you?”
Sven shrugged and pushed back some dreads that had fallen forward over his shoulder. “Sure. CCC is a really big client. Zeb’s due on a shoot for them next month, but they’ve called the agency and are very insistent they want some early mock-ups, like now.”
“CCC?” Dominic wrinkled his nose.
Aidan closed his eyes. Hell’s bells. He’d heard Zeb mention them.
“Cup Crotch Company,” Sven said merrily. “Only the brand for this year’s underwear! They love Zeb’s look, it’s exactly what they want for the new campaign.”
“Cup. Crotch. Company.” Dominic repeated each word slowly and deliberately as if waiting for someone from Candid Camera to leap out and point a gleeful finger.
Aidan wanted the pavement to open up and swallow him. There was no way he could go inside the agency on any pretext, least of all in the guise of his twin. He sneaked a sideways glance at Dominic. “It’s a pity… um, Sven, but I’m booked elsewhere. Anyway, you’ll never get a team together on such short notice—”
“It’s all arranged!” Sven’s grin got almost impossibly wider. “Isn’t that lucky? The studio’s been set up today for reviewing the shots from my trip.” He turned briefly to Dominic. “Blake and Elaine—they’re the faces of January Cosmetics, you know?”
“No,” Dominic said with his usual bluntness.
“The Look to Share,” Sven trilled. Aidan reckoned that if there’d been background music, Sven would have sung his way through the full commercial. “‘The couple who make up together, make out together.’ You get it?”
Dominic opened his mouth but Aidan rushed to interrupt. “Sven, I can’t do it.” He gestured toward Dominic. “I mean, I have a prior engagement.”
“Prior eng—?” Sven looked Dominic up and down with blatant approval. “How adorable.”
“It’s fine with me,” Dominic said, in his deep, no-nonsense voice. His deep, no-nonsense, drop-Aidan-in-the-shit voice.
“What?” Aidan stared at him. “I can’t… I mean, I’m not in the right mood for modeling right now.” Modeling? And underwear?
“We love Zeb’s moods,” Sven said blithely, tilting his head as if sharing a secret with Dominic. “They add that extra edge to a shoot, you know?”
“I’m sure,” Dominic said.
Was that a smirk teasing the edge of his mouth? Aidan was going to kill him.
Chapter Nineteen
BEFORE Aidan could protest any more, Sven had shooed him across the road and into the agency.
Lukas had converted the top floor into a small private studio, but Aidan had never been there. Luckily he remembered enough from Zeb’s tales to know where things were, and he didn’t have to hesitate when Sven hustled them up the stairs. Sven flung open the door on the top landing to reveal a spacious and well-lit area with a blank backdrop curtain and standing photographic equipment. The other people in the room turned to stare as Sven, Aidan, and Dominic entered.
“And you’ll be working again with your favorite, Zeb, won’t you?” Sven crowed.
“I will?” Dammit, I sound like a parrot.
“Benjy McAdam, of course! All these years he’s been your favorite photographer.”
“He has?” Aidan said weakly. “I mean, he has.” He took a quick peek around the room. Panic rippled through him. Was Benjy the tall man with horn-rimmed spectacles or the plump guy whose T-shirt left a gap above his jeans every time he reached over? After their initial interest, both had turned away to fiddle with the cameras.
Then a tall man approached from the side of the room and drew a startled Aidan into a hug. He wore a T-shirt with a Chinese logo on it and stylish faded jeans, and he’d tied his hair back into a stubby ponytail at his nape. Featureswise he seemed nothing out of the ordinary, but he had a surprisingly confident grip.
“B-Benjy?”
The man pulled back to reveal a face transformed by a mischievous and very attractive smile. “Good to see you too, punk. You’re a welcome antidote to that terrible twosome, Flake and Pain.”
Dominic snorted a laugh behind them and Sven frowned. “Now, Benjy, you know they’re Blake and Elaine. Please don’t be so provocative.” He flipped his hair back again and spoke to Aidan. “Anyway, this is only a few shots, a quick precampaign taster. They tell me it’s just a simple ‘the making of’ video release on YouTube.”
“YouTube?” Now Aidan’s voice was a squeak.
Sven looked slyly at Dominic. “And you can watch of course, Mr. Adorable Engagement.”
Aidan glared at Dominic. Yes, that was definitely the start of a smirk… and there was a devilish twinkle in his
eyes.
Benjy was cleaning the lens of his camera, but he watched Dominic and Aidan with interest. Aidan thought he caught a brief glimpse of confusion in Benjy’s expression when it rested on Aidan. Was Benjy suspicious of “Zeb”?
But before Aidan could say anything else, Sven plumped a hand at the base of his back and propelled him toward a door marked Private. “Hop off and change there, sweetie. Half an hour, didn’t I say?”
“You said fifteen minutes,” Aidan protested.
Sven pressed a bundle of clothing into Aidan’s arms and closed the door firmly behind him. Aidan found himself in a small changing closet, clutching a pile of brightly colored, barely decent underwear. What was happening? He couldn’t model anything! He had no idea how to, to say nothing of not having the right look—even if he’d been sure what that actually was. Yes, he’d watched Zeb prance about many times at home, practicing, joking, telling entertaining stories about successes and disasters on set. But that was far from doing it himself. Like, a million miles too far!
Then he remembered Zeb’s unusually shaky voice and pleading tone while he begged Aidan to give him more time with Lukas.
I’m an actor by trade. This is just another type of stage. Aidan took a deep breath. I have to do this.
THE first thing Aidan realized about modeling underwear was that it was a bloody cold job. Mind you, that was to be expected, standing around in a muscle shirt and skimpy boxers. He felt horribly exposed, with nothing to distract attention from him apart from a nearby leather armchair and the crumpled white linen of the backdrop. The rest of the room was bare except for the camera and lighting equipment.
Sven was fussing around him. “Let me oil you down some more, Zeb, sweetie.”
“That’s enough,” Aidan said shortly. Sven had already massaged up and down his arms and legs with an enthusiasm that bordered on creepy. How the hell did Zeb cope with this invasion of his personal space?
Sven’s eyes narrowed and his gaze ran up and down Aidan’s body. He frowned. “Something’s just not right,” he said slowly.
This is it. Aidan folded his arms across his chest, then unfolded them quickly at the sticky feeling of the oil. He was going to be found out. Oh well, it had to happen eventually.
“It’s the lighting” came a slow drawl from beside the armchair. Benjy leaned around his tripod and winked at Aidan. “It’s deceptive.”
“You reckon?” Sven’s smile reappeared. “Of course! He looks shorter than my last session with him, which is of course ridiculous. But maybe—” He gave Aidan a coyly suggestive look. “Carrying just a few extra ounces around that midriff, sweetie? Have you been overindulging in snackettes with—” Another coy look, this time in Dominic’s direction. “—prior engagements?”
“He looks good to me” came a bark in reply from the back of the room. Dominic! “When are you going to get on with it?”
Sven was startled into temporary silence. Benjy chuckled. All Aidan wanted was the white curtain to draw him back into its folds so that he couldn’t be seen anywhere this side of the Arctic Circle.
“Of course, yes, let’s get going.” Sven blustered his way back behind the cameras. “If you can just run through the poses we suggested, sweetie.”
Oh God. Poses?
For a few more seconds, Aidan stood like a porcelain statue, until Sven started calling out what he wanted. Aidan had to crouch, to reach back over his shoulder, to lift his arms behind his head.
Sven wasn’t smiling any more. Aidan knew he wasn’t making the grade. He’d never really considered what Zeb actually did, but modeling appeared to take a lot more than standing around and looking… well, just looking like yourself.
“The arms, sweetie, the arms.” Sven was starting to look frazzled. “Turn with that clenched fist thing you do. Okay, let’s work on that chair!”
Oh God. Aidan wondered how many times he would think that before he said it out loud and ran screaming from the room. Zeb would have to forgive him, because this was mortifying. His body had been plonked into place like a shop dummy and his limbs molded into odd shapes like kid’s modeling clay. This had gone beyond sibling love and into the realms of torture; he really couldn’t take any more—!
“And off with the shirt, sweetie,” Sven called.
And double God.
Aidan peeled off the muscle vest and leaned on the arm of the chair. His muscles felt stiff and the leather squeaked as it took his weight. His nipples, suddenly exposed to the cooler air, pebbled. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Dominic move nearer.
“Give me some attitude,” Benjy said to Aidan. His camera clicked frequently in the otherwise quiet room. “You know? Your usual sassy look.”
Aidan was close to frozen now. He probably looked more like a rabbit in headlights than a sexy supermodel. What sort of look did Benjy mean? Dominic had moved behind the spotlight by now, near enough to catch Aidan’s eye.
And then Dominic winked at him.
Winked!
“Wait a minute,” Aidan blurted out.
Sven sashayed up with the bottle of oil, an expectant look on his face.
“No!” Aidan snapped. He had no idea he had such an assertive tone in his portfolio, but if Sven thought he was going to lather any more of that stuff on Aidan’s chest, he had another think coming.
Sven winced, held up a hand in appeasement, and backed away.
“He’s fine, Sven,” Benjy called over. And then, so quietly that maybe only Aidan could hear him, he murmured, “Relax. I’ve got your back.”
Aidan, distracted by Sven flouncing around the pile of discarded and potential outfits, had no time to wonder what that meant.
“Time to change into the blue,” Sven announced.
“What?”
“Slip off the white. Let’s see the blue. You look paler than usual today, sweetie, and it’ll look better against your skin.”
Aidan glanced down at the blue briefs on the floor behind the chair. No, he hadn’t misremembered how skimpy they were. “Don’t you think this is enough?” he asked as bravely as he could. Straightening up, he caught a small frown on Benjy’s face.
“Not like you to mind about stripping off,” the photographer said.
Okay. Aidan took a deep breath, fought back his blushes, and pushed down the white boxers to his ankles. A quick step out of them, then a grab for the blue pair. He fumbled as he tried to pull them on too quickly, and had to take a step forward to balance himself against the armchair. It was a stretch across the floor and meanwhile everything was swinging between his legs. Oh God, oh my God!
“Time to update your manscaping, sweetie,” Sven murmured rather acidly.
Aidan suspected Sven was still piqued at missing out on the oiling-down. He crouched down quickly, worried he could still hear the camera clicking away. Hopefully it was just his paranoia. When he yanked up the blue briefs—which were horribly shallow and he had to tuck his dick half under his balls to fit it in—and spun around, he found no one staring. It must just be normal life to these guys. Silly of him to think anyone would be watching him get his kit off.
And then he caught Dominic’s gaze again.
Dominic’s eyes were hot, the pupils dilated and the edges a little pink as if they genuinely steamed. The look in them was unmistakable. He wanted Aidan, and he wanted him back at the naked in-between-briefs stage. Now.
“Yes,” Benjy murmured to Aidan, just as quietly as before. His camera clicked away. “That’s the right look at last.”
Dominic moved around to the side of the chair. He was out of shot, but facing Aidan. Aidan couldn’t take his eyes off Dominic’s face, where desire was written in every pore. Aidan wondered if Dominic could see he felt the same; that in a minute, if Dominic kept giving him that look, the blue briefs wouldn’t have room for even Aidan’s modest tackle.
Then Dominic slowly ran his finger across the top of the chair’s leather back. A shiver ran across Aidan’s skin like a gust of fresh, spring air, and he
let out the smallest of gasps.
“Oh yes.” Benjy gave a small sigh. “Perfect. That’ll do it.”
“It’s a wrap!” Sven trilled with glee. “Thanks, everyone!”
Chapter Twenty
DOM couldn’t remember ever feeling such turmoil. On a physical level, Zeb’s shoot had wound him up into such a state of need that his whole belly ached with lust. He wanted to take Zeb to bed, and now. He wanted more of the kisses they’d been practicing to a very fine degree recently. He wanted Zeb in that same stage of undress, but in private and under Dom’s own hands.
He fixed his gaze doggedly on the door of the changing room where Zeb had vanished to, wary that Zeb might emerge unexpectedly and escape Dom’s attention, even for a second.
Zeb finally stumbled out of the closet, fully dressed now but looking a little disoriented, and Dom all but grabbed his hand to bring him close. Zeb blinked up at him with that sexy open-eyed look he had. Dom really—really—hoped they were on the same page on this need thing. He wasn’t known for sweet-talking seduction, though for Zeb, he’d do his damnedest.
He’d do a lot for Zeb, he realized with a shiver of shock.
“Do you want to see the shots, sweeties?” Sven had sidled up beside Dom, as if he imagined Dom had the remotest interest in him and whatever he was gabbling about now. “Zeb likes to look all through them after a shoot—”
“Not now. He’s busy,” Dom said abruptly. “Needed elsewhere. He has to leave now.” He put his hand in the small of Zeb’s back. The skin felt warm, and Dom’s palm was the perfect fit.
Sven looked too scared by Dom’s fierceness to question the nonsense of all that, and he kept well back as they crossed the studio to the door.